


Quite an Impression

by AMarguerite



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, history of the book, printer!Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6613087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reinterpretation of Hugo's early declaration that the printing press had killed the cathedral, featuring printer! Enjolras.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quite an Impression

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bobbiewickham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/gifts), [PilferingApples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts).



> Enjolras-as-printer headcanon developed by pilferingapples and robertawickham, and best explained here: http://pilferingapples.tumblr.com/post/142943329351/a-printers-only-son-and-wealthy-an-alternate

‘Young master Enjolras,’ Monsieur Enjolras read with approval, sparing a glance from the letter to his nephew, standing quiet and composed before him, ‘is a good worker, capable of doing any job he gets, not at all a drunkard, and assiduous in his labor. Though he has spent most of his apprenticeship as a compositor, he has strength sufficient to be a pressman, and he knows French, Latin, and enough Greek to be a competent reader of nearly any proofs. He is capable of singular focus. But put him before a case with a compositing stick and he will work at his copy without distraction, til every line is set, and very nearly without error.’

“The Didots seem contented with your labors, Master Enjolras,” said Monsieur Enjolras, well pleased. “Assiduous and sober-- one can hardly ask for more than that in a printer-- and yet they go on to say you will work at your copy without distraction when you set a line of type. A very good report indeed.”

Master Enjolras smiled a little. He stood with his top hat in his gloved hands, looking more like an escaped college student than a journeyman printer in his fine, very white linens, and well-tailored dark blue coat, gray trousers, and white waistcoat. But then his fair hair caught the dawn light spilling in from the large, plate-glass windows at the front of the store and gave him a slight halo. It made him look remarkably like the scroll-bearing angel that had served as the Enjolras family printer’s mark since the 16th century. Monsieur Enjolras smiled back. 

“You have done well, my nephew,” said Monsieur Enjolras, pompously enough to be amusing. “But having said that, you are now Master Enjolras. That’s it. Master Enjolras. No more first names-- you have left that behind with your apprenticeship, I hope--  and no nepotism. Well, not much. But I shall treat you as I would any other journeymen printer. To be a master printer in the Enjolras print shops, one must be an  _ associé _ , never a tyrant. You must do, and must be seen to do, the same work as the men around you, especially when I start to train you on other tasks. What instructions did they give to you when you finished your apprenticeship ?”

“Never to betray my colleagues,” said young master Enjolras. He had not quite lost his Marseilles accent; the cadences lingered, even as the vowels and consonants had been sharpened to more Parisian pronunciations. His sentences had the thrill of a hymn about them. “Never to be a hypocrite. To maintain the wage rate, and to protest any ordinance against the free press. Ours is a wild and free republic of letters, open to any man who can but read. One must be an honest man to stay there. If one is not, one will be and must be cast out.”

“Sounds very much like Contat,” said Monsieur Enjolras. “He used to listen-- and I think even to print-- speeches for the Jacobin Club. I suppose he is still the Didot’s foreman?”

Master Enjolras inclined his golden head. 

“Very good. Now, change coat for apron and hat for cap! But neatly, neatly. Don't chuck your coat to the ground. You'll need to put it back on when I send you out with proof sheets to our authors.” 

After Master Enjolras had rolled his sleeves and put on his apron and cap, Monsieur Enjolras cleared his throat. “I, ah... I imagine that Monsieur Contat asked for your assistance, occasionally, on, ah... pamphlets one must print after hours. Ones that cannot be sold at the bookseller’s.”

Master Enjolras looked slightly suspicious.

“If you enjoyed that work,” said Monsieur Enjolras, carefully, “I have more of it for you. It is not work I can trust to any journeyman, but it is work we have always done, and we must do. Not just for the money, mind you. Thanks be to Saint John the Evangelist--” this being the patron saint of printers “-- we are a large shop, and well established. We are never short of work or copy. But we... by virtue of our position and our privilege, we owe it to our society to print that which is  _ necessary  _ to print. Even if the government does not agree it  _ is _ necessary.”

“I understand,” said Master Enjolras. His smile was slow-dawning and brilliant. “It would please me greatly unc-- Monsieur Enjolras.”

“Very good-- now, a word about our own customs and we shall go out.”

They went out together from the glass-panneled office at the back into the shop proper, skirting the Stanhope press looming in the middle of the room, and the smaller hand-presses surrounding it like planets orbiting a star. Monsieur Enjolras paused when they were halfway between these and the cases lining the walls by the windows. They were equidistant from both halves of the shop, and could see, in the periphery, women at work folding and sewing together the dried, printed sheets on one side of the shop, and on the other, women and boys in the yard dampening the paper and trimming it to size. 

“Bonjour Monsieur le prote,” said Monsieur Enjolras.

The foreman, engaged in lifting fresh-printed sheets to dry on the ropes hung across the ceiling, set down his wooden staff and touched a knuckle to the edge of his paper cap. “Bonjour monsieur le patron.”

“Bonjour messieurs les compositeurs,” said Monsieur Enjolras, turning to the cases of type and the men before them.

“Bonjour Monsieur le patron,” came back to him in a distracted chorus. It was mid-way through the morning. They had lines to set or to correct. They would not put them aside for someone as insignificant as the owner of the shop.

“Bonjour messieurs les imprimeurs,” said Monsieur Enjolras, turning to the presses. The pressmen bellowed back their greeting. 

Monsieur Enjolras nodded politely to the ladies now putting aside their work to stand on the edges of the main room and observe. It had never occurred to Monsieur Enjolras to invite them to participate in the rituals of the shop. These ceremonies, which always began with jokes over the presses and ended with drinking in a nearby cafe, belonged solely to the journeymen and foremen. The apprentices, even, could be excluded, unless they were the subject of the celebration.  

“I introduce to you today our newest journeyman,” said Monsieur Enjolras, resting a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Young master Enjolras here is the son of my younger brother, in Marseilles, and has just finished his apprenticeship with the Didots. We welcome him!”

There were the customary variations in applause. The pressmen were louder, since they always had a wooden lever or stick close at hand, and the compositors more noisy, as they had type to rattle, or metal frames to hit.  

“The angel!” came the cry. “Let him petition the angel!”

The foreman came solemnly forth with the engraving of the printer’s mark, and the nearest compositors cleared a spot on a bench before the case of Didot type. One apprentice helpfully set out a form and another a composing stick. 

Master Enjolras, prepared, went at once to the table and began quickly pulling out the bits of type from the hundred and fifty two compartments, sliding the metal sorts neatly and efficiently into place, clack-clack-clack, a percussive accompaniment to the chants of the journeymen and apprentices around him. It was the work of a moment for him to set the single line of type and the engraving in the form.

The bell over the door chimed as a cheer went up.

“Impress the angel,” came the chant.

Monsieur Enjolras tore himself away from this reluctantly. He would have liked to see himself how his probable heir handled the presses. But there was Monsieur Hugo in the door, looking solemn and purposefully Romantic, and clutching a portfolio of proofing sheets Monsieur Enjolras had really needed two days ago.

“Monsieur Hugo,” said Monsieur Enjolras, fighting his way through the crowd. “What an honor it is! I see you have your proofs for us--”

He entered into conversation half-distractedly, keeping Monsieur Hugo by the door so as to get him to leave sooner. It was, at times, necessary to talk over the usual ribald jokes. “Go on, ink your balls!” never stopped being funny to a pressman, no matter how many times it was repeated. Monsieur Hugo was understandably distracted by the fourth repetition. 

“My nephew,” said Monsieur Enjolras, proudly. “Inking the type. Whenever we get a new journeyman in, we say he must petition the angel. To show he knows his craft, you see.”

Monsieur Hugo didn’t.

“He sets the form with his name and our house’s printer’s mark, sets the paper, inks the type, and prints a poster.” Monsieur Enjolras gestured to a wall in the back of the shop. “Then he posts it with all the others.”

“Even your nephew, Monsieur?”

“Especially my nephew,” said Monsieur Enjolras. “Since Gutenburg we have worked in common. We master our trade, not our fellow men.”

A cheer went up; young Master Enjolras had sealed the paper into the against the tymphon and under the frisket, and was turning the handle to get the set type, ink, and paper under the platten, to be pressed. Monsieur Enjolras, holding onto the portfolio, turned to try and see his nephew through the crowd.

“Didn’t think he’d have the strength for it, master,” said one of the burlier pressmen. “He looks no more than seventeen.”

“Here, the master can’t see,” said the foreman, wielding his stick. “Move aside you lot.”

“The printing press has killed the cathedral,” said Monsieur Hugo, in low, stentorian tones.

“What?” Monsieur Enjolras, turning back to Monsieur Hugo. 

“The book will destroy the edifice,” continued Monsieur Hugo, with the thrill of Romantic medievalism giving his voice a timbre that made most of the journeymen in the room turn and stare. And flinging his arm out, dramatically, Monsieur concluded, “No longer shall the angels unfurl their scrolls! They shall print and hang their notices on every wall in Paris.”

Ah ha, Monsieur Enjolras thought, it was a joke on his printer's mark. A complicated one with an odd lead in, admittedly, but recognizably an allusion to the Enjolras angel with its scroll unfurled. “How kind of you to say, Monsieur Hugo. Our device indeed--

Monsieur Hugo had not yet finished. “For angels have deserted the ancient stone arches they once supported with their light. They wield not the sword, but the printing lever.”

Monsieur Enjolras followed the line of Monsieur Hugo’s pointing arm and saw young master Enjolras, pulling hard on the lever of one of the smaller presses. He had lost his paper cap as he strained over the lever, and a lock of fair hair tumbled over his forehead, a note of boyish charm slightly at odds with his serious, concentrated expression. With his white apron showing little more of his clothes than his white cravat and rolled sleeves, he looked nearly angelic, and the paper hanging on ropes on the ceiling to dry behind him gave him the appearance of wings.

Several of the apprentices were sniggering. 

Master Enjolras did not look up. As the Didots had promised, he continued on undistracted.

“Er, yes, thank you, Monsieur Hugo,” said Monsieur Enjolras. “I shall send a boy with your copy of the book of poems once we have finished the printing.” He tried to communicate, via glare, that the apprentices were not to repeat Monsieur Hugo’s flight of poetic fancy, but this was a useless attempt. As soon as Monsieur Hugo left, the usual chants became peppered with various prayers of intercession, mock fears of smiting, and various flowery compliments. 

“Hm?” Master Enjolras seemed puzzled by a prayer to Master Printer Angel being loudly declaimed in his ear. He did not, however, pause in his work, and lifted the tymphon and frisket from the inked type, with a slight, sticky noise. 

Monsieur Enjolras rolled up a sheet of ruined, ink-blotched paper laying at the foot of the Stanhope press, and lightly tapped Master Enjolras on the top of the head with it, as if play-disciplining a puppy. “Quite an  _ impression  _ you made, young master!”

The foreman smiled and the apprentices and journeymen laughed outright. 

“Let us see the one made with the press, and not Monsieur Hugo.”

The workers crowded round, and then one of the pressmen said, “Legible! Inscribe him on the book of life!”

The poster was lifted off the press and passed about, until Monsieur Enjolras at last received it and nailed it on the back wall. He positively beamed at it. No typos, a nice even spacing and inking-- a very promising start indeed.


End file.
